The Last Word On Nothing

Early on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, my son and I headed out to hunt for morel mushrooms, which are pretty elusive here in New England. Though I’ve searched for them a bit the past few years, I have never yet found them. But I could see from a steady flow of photos in my local foraging group that they were out there.

Morels enjoy the company of dying elms and apple trees, so I asked around for pointers to old orchards on public lands nearby. That’s how S and I found ourselves on a little mound bullishly called Mount Pollux.

It’s hard to describe the beauty of the hills around here, especially in the spring. It’s hard to describe any kind of everyday natural beauty, maybe, without sounding a bit generic. The trees are so green, the sky is so blue, the air smells just like honey. But that Sunday morning on Mount Pollux it was exactly like that. The dandelions practically glimmered like golden buttons in the grass, and the soft reds and oranges from foliage in the distance blended into the land’s contours.

S and I walked along the mowed path, holding hands, toward a lone tree up the slope. He told me how he’d constructed the toothpick shooter he was carrying, and how he’d marked each toothpick with a bit of red electrical tape to help him find it where it lands.

Smart, I thought. I contemplated the intimate thrill of relief he described, of landing on the thing you are looking for, whatever it is. Such relief had eluded me all week as I struggled to alight on a bigger theme in a story I’m aching to write, hoping to turn it into a project worthy of a months-long fellowship. It was the day before the fellowship deadline and I was still aimlessly circling.

Meanwhile, as we walked, we inspected several gnarled apple trees, which were popping with blossoms and hedged with brambles. We circled each one, scrutinizing the ground around it like our hope depended on it — which it did. We didn’t find any morels.

One thing I love about hunting for mushrooms is that you have to be at once in sync with the land and yet somehow above it, eagle-eyed. Another thing I love is that finding mushrooms requires a different sort of vision, literally a different way of looking, than the one I take for granted as I work at my desk, potter in my kitchen, spend time with my family, walk through my town. Morel hunters in particular sometimes prep for outings by staring at photos of their quarry in its natural setting, acclimating their eyes. Your eyes have to cut through overlapping textures and be ready to act on surprise.

This focused scanning never fails to unhitch my mind from the whir of its usual script. Often, unexpected strings of words blow in. That morning, those words were, “The Earth does not owe you mushrooms — just like it doesn’t owe you stories, vision, connection.” I suppose that might sound like a fuck you from Gaia, but truly, the message felt grounding — even comforting. That’s right, I thought, but easy to forget. We have to seek those things. Seeking is our life’s work.

The night before this morel hunt, I confided to my husband that I wasn’t sure I could solve my story-fellowship dilemma. “Maybe it’s just a story,” I told him. “I can’t figure out what it’s an example of and what the bigger meaning is.”

He was suspicious. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds like you’re reaching for reasons to let yourself off the hook.”

He might have been right, I admit, but so was I. Sometimes, you want to find it – whatever it is – but you just can’t. You think you’re searching as hard as you’re able, but maybe your starting assumptions block your way. Maybe you’re searching too literally. Maybe you’re staring at your navel when you should be scanning the sky— or maybe it’s the opposite, and what you seek lies inward. Somewhere on Mount Pollux there may well have been morels for S and me to find. But even though we didn’t find them there, we will continue on our way, and we will go on looking.